A family of invariants of rooted forests

Let A be a commutative k-algebra over a field of k and Ξ a linear operator defined on A. We define a family of A-valued invariants Ψ for finite rooted forests by a recurrent algorithm using the operator Ξ and show that the invariant Ψ distinguishes rooted forests if (and only if) it distinguishes rooted trees T, and if (and only if) it is finer than the quantity α(T)=|Aut(T)| of rooted trees T. We also consider the generating function with , where is the set of rooted trees with n vertices. We show that the generating function U(q) satisfies the equation . Consequently, we get a recurrent formula for U_n (n?1), namely, U₁=Ξ(1) and U_n=ΞS_n−1(U₁,U₂,…,U_n−1) for any n?2, where are the elementary Schur polynomials. We also show that the (strict) order polynomials and two well-known quasi-symmetric function invariants of rooted forests are in the family of invariants Ψ and derive some consequences about these well-known invariants from our general results on Ψ. Finally, we generalize the invariant Ψ to labeled planar forests and discuss its certain relations with the Hopf algebra in Foissy (Bull. Sci. Math. 126 (2002) 193) spanned by labeled planar forests.